DOI Link Formatter

How to Use the DOI Link Formatter

1. 1. Paste your reference list. Any style, one reference per line.
2. 2. Choose the form. https://doi.org/ for APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago; doi: with no space for AMA; doi: with a space for IEEE; or the DOI alone for a database field or a BibTeX doi field.
3. 3. Set the clean-up. Remove the Retrieved from an APA 6 list puts before a DOI, and choose what happens to a full stop after a DOI that ends a reference.
4. 4. Check, then copy. Rewritten DOIs are highlighted in the list and every change is shown before and after; anything that is not a usable DOI is listed under Needs checking. Copy the list as plain text, or with live links for Word and Google Docs.

The DOI Form Each Style Asks For

The link form comes from Crossref, which registers most scholarly DOIs. Its DOI display guidelines ask for a full https://doi.org/ link — no dx., and no doi: or DOI: label in front — and APA 7 adopted them. APA also asks you to bring older forms such as doi:10… and http://dx.doi.org/… up to date, which is the job this tool was built for.

An APA 6 List, Rewritten

With the link form chosen, Retrieved from removed and the final full stop removed, these three references —

Aspelmeyer, M. (2009). Measured measurement. Nature Physics, 5(1), 11–12. doi:10.1038/nphys1170
Light, J., & McNaughton, D. (2014). From basic to applied research … Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 30(2), 99–105. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/07434618.2014.906498
Ray, O. (2004). How the mind hurts and heals the body. American Psychologist, 59(1), 29–40. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29.

Aspelmeyer, M. (2009). Measured measurement. Nature Physics, 5(1), 11–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170
Light, J., & McNaughton, D. (2014). From basic to applied research … Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 30(2), 99–105. https://doi.org/10.3109/07434618.2014.906498
Ray, O. (2004). How the mind hurts and heals the body. American Psychologist, 59(1), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29

— and the change list shows the three edits, before and after. Choose the AMA form instead and the same references end doi:10.1038/nphys1170, doi:10.3109/07434618.2014.906498 and doi:10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29.

What Counts as Part of the DOI

• Labels and old resolvers go. doi:, DOI:, a colon-less DOI 10…, http://dx.doi.org/, a scheme-less doi.org/, and the older doi.acm.org and doi.wiley.com links are replaced. A percent-encoded DOI is decoded first: 10.1016%2FS0140-6736%2897%2911096-0 becomes 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0.
• The sentence's punctuation stays outside. A full stop, comma or semicolon after a DOI, and brackets or quotation marks around it, are not part of it. A bracket the DOI opened stays in, so 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0 keeps its parentheses and an old Wiley DOI such as 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19980430)17:8<857::AID-SIM777>3.0.CO;2-E keeps all of its own.
• Case stays as written. DOIs are not case-sensitive, so the formatter leaves capitals alone.
• Link-breaking characters are encoded. In the link form, a %, #, ? or quotation mark inside a DOI becomes %25, %23, %3F or %22.

What It Flags Instead

A DOI that cannot be rewritten safely is left as written and listed under Needs checking: a label followed by something that is not a DOI, such as doi: 1037/0003-066X.59.1.29 with its 10. lost; a link that stops at the slash; a DOI ending in a hyphen at a line end, usually split by a PDF; a look-alike character such as ‐ (U+2010) in place of the hyphen, which looks right and does not resolve; and a DOI inside a publisher's article link, which would break if half of it were rewritten. The formatter never looks DOIs up — check one with the DOI Validator & Resolver — and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing you paste is sent anywhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I format a DOI in APA 7?

As a link: https://doi.org/ followed by the DOI, as in https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29. Leave out any doi: label and the words Retrieved from, and do not put a full stop after it — APA leaves the period off so the link keeps working. Update older forms in your list, such as doi:10… or http://dx.doi.org/…, to match.

Should I use doi.org or dx.doi.org?

doi.org. Both still resolve, but Crossref's display guidelines ask for https://doi.org/ without the dx, and APA 7 follows them. The formatter rewrites dx.doi.org links, with or without https, to the current form.

What is the difference between doi: and https://doi.org/?

They name the same work. The doi: label is the older way of writing one, still used by AMA (doi:10.1001/…, no space) and IEEE (doi: 10.1109/…, with a space). The https://doi.org/ form is a working link, which APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago ask for. Use the form your style guide or journal specifies.

Does a DOI need a full stop after it?

That depends on the style. APA 7 and AMA leave it off; IEEE, MLA 9 and Chicago end each reference with a full stop whether or not it ends with a DOI. The formatter leaves full stops alone unless you choose to remove or add one.

Why doesn't my DOI link work?

Usually because of something it picked up on the way: a dash or an invisible character from a PDF, a space after the slash, punctuation stuck to its end, or a line break in the middle. The formatter strips the punctuation and flags the rest. If a clean DOI still fails, check it with the DOI Validator & Resolver.